And that’s the view from the “I’m completely fucking insane” caucus…

Apparently, Scott, there is more than 1 member.

And that’s the view from the “I’m completely fucking insane” caucus…

First, the answer to the question: “Yes,”

Second, the clause that follows the answer to the question: “, but that tells us nothing about the morality of torture, or whether it’s a good idea outside of Planet Hypothetical.”

The problem is that the hypothetical has been constructed backwards: Given the outcome, were the actions that led to it justified? By juggling the details you can justify almost anything as the lesser of two evils in a particular situation — but so what? The only limit on what can be justified is either running out of hypothetical people (would you kill 49% of the world’s population to save the other 51%?) or an absolute moral boundary.

The more interesting question comes when you try to run the hypothetical forwards: If you have a suspect in custody and you believe he knows how to stop a mass killing and you believe that he won’t tell you in time without torture, would you do it? What would you do if your guess turned out to be wrong?

Foot-note on some earlier comments: Some people were asking follow-up questions along the lines of: “Yes, but what if it were your family?” If the answer to a dilemma depends on identities of the innocent victims, that’s a pretty strong indicator right there that the discussion has moved beyond a rational discussion of morality.

They know he planned 9/11 and therefore have a solid basis to believe he has other deadly plots in the works

Based on DNA evidence, I know X has murdered Y. Therefore, I believe he is about to murder Z or some number of Zs. Therefore, I have the right to torture X.
Perhaps if I somehow knew that X was about to murder someone, I would torture him. But only if I had the perfect the knowledge that he was going to. The slide from know to a solid basis to believe is what makes your hypothetical irrelevant. Especially if I am the government.

To elaborate: underneath all the posturing (I find it infinitely pathetic that anyone would think it takes “courage” to write a blog comment) I see a desperate wish that the government do something, anything, just so that we do not have to endure. But only enduring will convince our enemies that we mean what we say about freedom, only enduring will convince them that they cannot coerce us, that nothing they do will make us submit.

If we give up our moral center and use waterboarding and other forms of torture, if we say, as some of your commenters upstream have written (not that I waded through the whole thread) that we would do anything to protect the people we love, then the Salafists know they can manipulate us with fear and hate.

On a personal level, suppose this “terror plot” will hit the first night performance in a theater where half my family will go to the first night, and half to the second? What do I want? I want the survivors in my family to turn up for that second night performance. And I want the show to go on. Mad, scared, stubborn. Letting everyone know that they have a million ways to kill us but no way to break us. That we will not abandon our ethics and our honour, not now, not ever.

Finally, I’d like to take a whack at the basis for this little hypothetical with some hard facts. In the early 1990s, largely as a result of gang wars over the drugh trade, the US homicide rate spiked up until the United States suffered, 10000 excess homicides every year, the equivalent of a 9/11 every four months. Somehow, nobody felt the need for torture hypotheticals then. Interestingly, also according to DOJ statistics, that spike in the murder rate took place almost exclusively among Black Americans.

So they still remembered, but you think it didn’t influence any of their future choices. Interesting. Do you know what memory *is*?

(That was a rhetorical question, by the way. This entire sub-discussion is simply me mocking your ridiculous statements.)

was waterboarding an illegal practice at the time it was carried out?

If it was done by the CIA?

No, it wasn’t illegal. And that drives lefties absolutely nuts.

When they acknowledge it at all.